I had given myself fifteen minutes to get road-ready and set my alarm accordingly. We were only a quarter of an hour behind schedule getting out of the house, but we never stick to a tight itinerary, unless there’s a reservation. I ran back inside to drop off a washcloth I still had in hand and then we were off to Dade Battlefield Historic State Park which opens at 8a. The entrance is on the corner of a neighborhood and we’re the only visitors when we arrive. If I lived nearby, I would be out enjoying the Spanish moss, an epiphytic plant that uses trees for support and only breaks weak branches when the moisture it absorbs increases its weight tenfold.

The area is pretty, but the history is not. This is where the Seminoles fought in 1835 in defiance of the Indian Removal Act (all Native people must move west of the Mississippi River) and the Treaty of Paynes Landing (this tribe must move to land in present-day Oklahoma). The soldiers they ambushed would be reinterred almost six years later in St. Augustine. The government is still enforcing where people can live; they are just more discreet than sending an army on foot in broad daylight to ensure compliance. And after seeing how some people live, freely and innocently, I would never want to work in a position again that puts me in those situations of putrescence.

Having key lime pie is a good and tasty way to start a vacation morning but dwelling on the injustices of others is a downward spiral for another time. It’s a good thing our next stop is just dedicated to the present plants at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. The nice woman at the desk is glad to volunteer and talk with people like me (her words, but anyone who knows me knows I love to talk and learn too). She walks us through the park map in detail and then sends us on our way. I’m grateful for people who can afford to have free time, especially in retirement, and choose to spend it so that I may visit parks and gardens that might not otherwise remain open or offer human connection.

The US has 211 native orchid species of which 118 grow in Florida and 31 grow in Alaska, and there are over 25,000 species found on every continent except Antarctica. The native species are protected under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. There is a plan to revise it (ES Transparency and Reasonableness Act) introduced to the House in January of 2023 to have the best scientific and commercial data made available and disclose federal expenditures on litigation. I digress from nature’s beauty and instead focus on the fun of walking a labyrinth in a uni-cursive path, the same one leading inward and out again.

A maze is designed to challenge us, whereas a labyrinth is made to disengage our active mind by the increased focus of staying on a path that can be clearly seen from start to finish. This labyrinth is planted with mondo grass in the classical Cretan design which dates back to a Neolithic tomb in Sardinia from 2000-2500 B.C. I love the way the path plays on my senses. Constantly changing direction changes my view and I’m cautious to stay between the borders of grass that tickle my ankles as I pass. The bromeliad garden can include pineapple and Spanish moss and some carnivorous species that absorb nutrients from the dead insects that are drowned in their leaf center.

These little drowning pools are used by over 300 species of salamanders, frogs, insects, crustaceans, and other plants to create a micro-ecosystem. The vinery consists of twiners, such as honeysuckle, that weave their way upward by looping and twisting. Tendril climbers, like grapes and passion flowers, use spring-like hooks; and poison ivy attaches with aerial roots to get all the photosynthesis advantages of being high in the sun without the metabolic expense of creating support tissue to reach it on their own. The genus Kaempferia found here are the spices ginger, turmeric, and cardamom. We walk through the hardwood hammock and stare at the sinkhole flora.

In the herb garden, we try a chocolate mint leaf that smells more cocoa and tastes very minty. The bamboo garden teaches us about clumping and running varieties, one leaving an impenetrable stand and the other more widely spaced creating an open thicket. What I was surprised to find out was that for ten months of the year, only the root system grows, and then for two months during shoot season, some bamboo can grow up to two inches an hour; faster than all other vascular plants. Then there’s the aroid, hummingbird, and rock gardens, and Lake Kanapaha which was formed by the collapse of underlying limestone.

Kana, meaning palm leaves, and paha, meaning house, refer to the dwellings built by the Tumucua Indians, before their extinction in the 1700s, along the shore of this 250-acre hypereutrophic lake. We get the opportunity to see a cabbage palm, the Florida state tree, with symmetrical stem branching. The rare chance of this occurrence is 1 out of 100,000 and the cause is not yet known. This anomaly was moved from an area near Steinhatchee in 1991 and the resulting double crowns are conveniently blocked from view by other palms in the foreground. We quickly pass through the children’s garden knowing that we’ll have to come back to properly see the rest of this place, and when more plants are in bloom.

We exit off the 10-W for gas and the route seems a bit of a detour, but it puts us close to McAlister’s Deli for lunch. I order a slice of butter pecan cheesecake with my sandwich on a jalapeño roll. McCord Park isn’t far from here and is a planned stop for the seven bronze sculptures by Sandy Proctor; a native Floridian inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in March 2006 after 30 years as a professional artist. I suppose then that it was better that a guy let his dog piss on a park bench than on the art which features kids playing baseball and fishing with their dogs and frogs and a lone komodo dragon. I let the man know he was just as poorly trained as his dog.

We continue around the water feature that is half of the park and past a small garden. The park is nice but it’s a collective hydrant for the local dogs, which makes this roughly 19-acre park seem smaller. We didn’t walk the perimeter, but this is the largest acreage for a neighborhood park, some only being two acres to provide a green respite to residents living within a mile radius of its borders. Back at the car, I try my dessert; it tastes like a slice of pecan pie covered with butter ice cream, a concoction so sweet I can easily go a year without wanting another.

We’ll change into Central time after crossing over the Apalachicola River. We drive to Bellamy Bridge which was built in 1914 to replace the three wooden ones that stood before it between 1851 and 1913. The bridge remained in use until 1963 when a concrete one was put to use so that people could still walk to see the Pratt Through-Truss design; the oldest of its type in Florida. If you were to come here as part of the Spanish Heritage Trail, 11 historic sites over 150 miles, this spot would be referred to as the Natural Bridge of the Chipola River.

It’s believed this place is haunted by a wife in search of her husband who couldn’t be buried beside her for taking his own life. Perhaps people’s fear of this heartbroken woman explains why the signs look like a bear attacked them and was then shot at. The paper is wrinkled and sunburnt, also like an old woman. What’s left of the bridge is a memory of the advancements of bringing people ever closer to each other so we could trade language, food, crafts, and violence. The Battle of the Upper Chipola was fought here but is now where two curious lovers stand staring at the reflection of metal and wood on the water, part rippled, part smooth.

Eighty miles later Caleb is making sure we stop for gas sixty miles from Pensacola since I wasn’t paying attention. Depending on how we felt with the time change, I had planned on making it to Mobile or Biloxi tonight, but Caleb reminded me we weren’t in a hurry. Also, we could stop early tonight because Pensacola has a Mellow Mushroom and a hotel within walking distance that we can use points to stay at. We quickly dropped our bags in the room and sat at a high table with Bob Ross painting, on screen, in the background.

We ordered a Kosmic Karma and a Merry Prankster in different sizes and Caleb had to run to the car to grab my ID because the waitress who looks 40 but might be half my age doesn’t think I look that old and gratefully I don’t and I’m not yet. We sit under the Big Ass Fan made of used snow skis for sustainable customer comfort that uses less energy to be more efficient. It’s here that I think about the memories I’ve made with both parents in this restaurant chain – one on the other side of Florida and the other in Arizona; very different ways to enjoy pizza with loved ones and I’m happily making more.

We grab what’s left, half a pizza, to go and return to try the beach + sky-blue-water shampoo and the lemon + sugar wash. One is labeled self-confidence boosting and the other joy-inducing, but that is not the case. I’m glad they are refillable and squeezable bottles in bright colors against a clean shower wall but I was expecting to feel like a piece of ice (or a melted reusable cube) in a glass of lemonade. I was washed in water but I didn’t feel like fresh fruit on the beach waiting for a shark with a competitive edge. I think that’s too much to ask for in soap, but I do love citrus.

Our room has twice the space with its minimalist furniture and the curtain doubles as the room’s art piece. I post a picture from the gardens on Instagram and see some funny stickers – a dumpster fire: Ask me about my shift; and a stick figure holding a brain: hey, you dropped this. I would read from Wind, Sand, and Stars, “I stared at your face: it was splotched and swollen, like an overripe fruit that has been repeatedly dropped on the ground.” I suppose the soap should be non-invigorating rather than overly demanding of the senses that would be pulled from that fruity description.